Women offenders: after the Corston Report - United Kingdom ...

Ev 34 Justice Committee: Evidence29 January 2013 Juliet Lyon CBE, Frances Crook OBE and Clive Martinthat the Howard League is very concerned about thelack of leadership, I am less convinced that the answerlies in structural alterations. The Howard Leaguehas been a Youth Justice Board sceptic over the last10 years or so. The Youth Justice Board initiallypresided over a huge explosion in the use of custodyand a diversion of money from children’s services tothe youth justice system, and has only recently in thelast few years worked with voluntary organisations,like the Howard League and the Prison Reform Trust,to reduce the use of custody. I am not convinced thatstructural alterations will provide an answer and the________________Examination of Witnesseskind of leadership we want to see for the change inthe way that women who come into contact with thecriminal justice system are treated. I think it is a moresubtle response that is needed, a more political andfinancially driven response, and perhaps there are otherlessons to be learned. So I am a bit sceptical about thestructural thing. That is perhaps quite helpful becausewe do not always agree on everything, but generallywe agree on what we want to see; it is just about howto get there.Chair: Thank you very much indeed for your help. Weare very grateful. We have some more witnesses to see.Witnesses: Jacqueline McKenzie, Chief Executive, Female Prisoners Welfare Project, Hibiscus, DeborahCowley, Director, Action for Prisoners’ Families, Rachel Halford, Director, Women in Prison, and SherryAshfield, Principal Practitioner (Female sexual abuse), the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, gave evidence.Q165 Chair: Rachel Halford from Women in Prison,Sherry Ashfield from the Lucy Faithfull Foundation,Deborah Cowley from Action for Prisoners’ Familiesand Jacqueline McKenzie from Hibiscus, we are veryglad to have you with us this morning and gratefulto you for giving your time to help us get a betterunderstanding of this subject.We have been listening, as I think you have latterly, toorganisations which have worked in this field for sometime, but I am very interested in your view as peoplein day‐to‐day contact with women who have comethrough the criminal justice system or are cominginto it. Do you think the Corston recommendations,in so far as they have been implemented up to now—and that is to a very limited extent—have actuallymade any difference to the people you are dealingwith?Rachel Halford: The one key difference is the stopof strip searching now, unless it is on informedinformation. That is the one biggest thing. We haveseen some changes within the prisons inasmuch asnow there are programmes where all prison staff havewomen‐specific training. I was thinking about thisearlier—what my things would be that I would say offthe back of it—and I guess it would also be investmentinto the women’s community centres, which you haveheard a lot about this morning, that initial investmentand commitment to providing an alternative to custodyfor women. They were the key things at the beginning.Would you like to know my view on where we arenow? Unfortunately, it feels a little bit like we havegone backwards. There has been a lack of movement.There is no strategy from the Government. Much haschanged—I have to say, coincidentally—since youannounced your Committee’s inquiry. There seems tohave been a lot of movement over the last few months,but, essentially, once the change of Government cameinto play, the initial investment into the women’scentres has gradually changed. I think Clive mentionedabout the Corston coalition and the commitment ofmoney that they made in partnership. Then there werethe changes, the lack of commitment around moneyagain. The women’s centres now are in jeopardy withthe localisation. You have heard a lot this morningalready about there being no central driver makingsure that there are these services for women. As wemove forward, at the end of March this year we do notknow exactly what is going to happen to the women’scentres.Q166 Chair: Presumably, you have been affectedby the general austerity atmosphere, the fundinglimitations on local authorities and would-be partnersin women’s centres.Rachel Halford: Absolutely, and, I have to say, withinthe prisons. We work in all 13 prisons and we haveseen a huge change within them, the numbers of staffin particular. You cannot run an effective prison wherethere is rehabilitation if you do not have the staffing toresource that.Q167 Chair: Has the gender equality duty beensignificant? Has it made any difference to whathappens and how women are treated?Sherry Ashfield: Certainly, looking from theperspective of the more high‐risk women, we haveseen no indication that it has made any differencewhatsoever. As to the level of treatment provisionthat is available for those high-risk women, who weacknowledge are a very small minority of the overallfemale offending population, it still remains verydifficult for them to access any form of adequateservice provision. For example, if you had a male sexoffender, there would be an expectation that they wouldgo through a sex offender treatment programme, theywould do that in custody or they could do that in thecommunity. If you are a female sex offender who isactually sentenced, particularly to a long sentence, theprobability is that the resources will mean there wouldbe nothing available for you, either when you are incustody—Q168 Chair: So there would be no programme.Sherry Ashfield: There would be no programme. Thatfilters down to the PSR stage, so, at the point at whichyou are going into the system, the lack of programmemay mean that you do end up getting a custodialsentence because there aren’t other options being madeavailable to the courts and to the judiciary.